First Time: Ian's Story (First Time (Ian) Book 1) Read Online Free PDF Page A

into my pocket and took out the
slip of paper I’d lied about keeping. The
love of your live will step into your path this summer.
    This was either going to be an insane amount
of trouble, or the best worst date I’d ever had.

Chapter Three
     
    As a
lifelong Catholic, I’ve always vaguely resented Sunday mornings.
Especially when I’d spent my Saturday night with six idiots fixing
a fucked up drawing. Intelligently, I knew I didn’t have to go to mass.
Emotionally, I’d be looking over my shoulder all week if I skipped
it. Every time I stepped off a fucking curb I’d hear my mother’s
voice in my head, taunting me from beyond the grave: “If you don’t
have an hour for our Lord, maybe he won’t have an hour for you when
you’re in need.” So, even though I’d had a late night, I found
myself tying up yet another tie, preparing for spiritual battle
with myself.
    I’d spent the night at the office. There was
always something to do, and there was a couch that was surprisingly
comfortable to sleep on. These days, I liked it more than my
apartment, which remained a minefield of hurt feelings. I still
found bits of my marriage strewn all over. When we’d opened the
firm, we’d renovated a floor in a midtown skyscraper that had
excellent big windows and amazing daylight exposure. I stood beside
my drafting table and clicked the lamp on and off. So, it was a bit
bleak, with the light gray walls and sparse interior decor, but
that hadn’t been my choice. Gena had done that.
    God, I couldn’t get away from her.
    In the light of day,
especially the light of a Sunday, reality was starting to intrude
on my high from my date with Penny. What the hell had I been
thinking? She was thirty years younger than me. Thirty years, not
ten or hell, I would even take twenty. And she moved slow . What would she
think of me if she knew all the kinky things I’d got up to in my
past? And what did slow mean to a twenty-two year old?
    I needed advice, and I needed it from
someone younger than me. I rang my nephew, Danny. He was
twenty-six. He would know what slow meant.
    “ You realize it’s Sunday,
right?” he said in lieu of a hello. “It’s kind of our rush
hour?”
    “ I know, I’m heading out the
door myself,” I glanced at my watch and patted my pocket to check
that I’d remembered my rosary. Still had plenty of time to make it
to mass, but I would miss confession.
    “ You’re just leaving the
house? Uncle Ian, we start in like thirty minutes.” Danny’s accent
had all but faded since he’d come to America when he was ten years
old, but I heard loads of Scottish exasperation in it.
    I scrubbed my hand down my face and braced
for more shame. It’s a hell of a thing when your nephew holds
ecclesiastic authority over you. “I was planning to go to St.
Andrew’s, this week.”
    “ Tell me you’re not at the
office. Tell me you went home with that girl you were seeing,”
Danny groaned.
    “ No, I didn’t go home with
her. I saw her on Friday. What kind of priest are you, anyway?” It
was no good lying to him. Lying to a priest was probably worse than
lying to a regular person, on the sin scale. “I’m at the
office.”
    Danny sighed. “I would rather you’d spent
the night with your date.”
    “ Well, that’s what I called
to talk about, Danny.” I stressed his name, so he’d know we were
strictly off the record with the Lord. “Oh, but I also can’t make
it to confession, so I’m going to need an indulgence.”
    “ We can’t just hand those
out, and you know it. Say a rosary for my mom, and I’ll absolve
you. Just tell me about your date.” Daniel was slightly out of
breath. He was headed in to get all vestmented up, so I wouldn’t
keep him too long.
    “ It started off bad, but it
got a lot better. But there’s a problem.” I couldn’t dance around
it and waste Danny’s time. “She’s twenty-two. And she says she
‘goes slow’.”
    “ Goes slow? What does that
mean?” he asked.
    “ I